Music Blog

The 10 Best Concerts in St. Louis This Weekend: April 14 to 16

Bo and the Locomotive returns with its first show in over a year on Friday night.

From beloved indie rock royalty to the best purveyors of funk in St. Louis, this weekend shows just how encompassing the local music community can be. Looking for low-key? Check out Centipede at C.A.M.P. on Cherokee. Want raucous rock and roll? The Maness Brothers keep it locked down at Off Broadway. Whatever the taste, we have your flavor below.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14

Bo and the Locomotive w/ Whoa Thunder, Necessities
9 p.m. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $10. 314-773-3363.
While we could talk about how Bo and the Locomotive "chugs along" or "moves like a speeding train," we should maybe leave a few dad jokes and bad puns for the band's stage banter. Not that Bo and company will have much space to speak over the raucous crowd that's been waiting the group to return from hiatus. The show poster is straight-up ripped from Star Wars with "Return of the Loco" scrawled across the top, so one should expect a night with a tongue-in-cheek vibe — until Lucasfilm sends over that cease and desist letter.

Devin the Dude w/ MBz Live
8 p.m. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $20-$23. 314-833-3929. By Daniel Hill
Houston's Devin Copeland, better known as Devin the Dude, has never seen mainstream success. It's somewhat perplexing, really: The rapper has long been lauded by critics and has worked with everyone from De la Soul to Gucci Mane to Tech N9ne. (He even featured prominently on Dr. Dre's classic Chronic 2001, lending some bars to the track "Fuck You.") With an unassuming and humorous delivery, the Dude often rhymes about marijuana — clearly one of his favorite things — and chasing women. Despite never breaking through to rap's upper echelons, Copeland maintains a steady cult following that will surely fill the Ready Room with smoke this Friday.

New Found Glory
8 p.m. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $24-$28. 314-726-6161.
OK, so New Found Glory is starting to look a little old in the tooth. Far be it from us to be an ageist publication, but pop punk has been a teenager's — and lapsed twenty-something's — game since the early nineties. The Florida natives know this well, made evident by their own growth into alt-rock and a more mainstream flavor of hardcore. In fact, the band never let more than three years go by without a studio album with its latest, Makes Me Sick, set to release at the end of April. With this tour billed as "20 Years of Pop Punk 1997-2017" it's hard to say if the band is cashing in on nostalgia or paying respect to its own root. Seeing as how New Found Glory never really hung up its Vans in the first place, we'd wager the latter.
Shiro Schwarz w/ Centipede, Kody Kool, Driftides, Starlite
9 p.m. C.A.M.P., 3022A Cherokee Street. $10. 314-827-4730.
Shiro Schwarz might be ripped straight from a Portlandia skit yet its saucy synth-pop gives an honest dissertation of new wave without a lick of irony. Mexico City-natives Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil seem to be dead serious about aesthetic, pointing to a unity of audio and visuals to invoke a distinct kind of sensory overload. This rare show at C.A.M.P. also offers local support led by Centipede, FarFetched Collective's beat-machine that injects jazz and subversive soul into his pieces.

SATURDAY, APRIL 15

CaveofswordS w/ Asumaya, Hands and Feet
9 p.m. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust Street. Free. 314-241-2337.
The long-standing trio behind CaveofswordS — Sunyatta McDermott, Kevin McDermott and Eric Armbruster — added drummer Chan Evans to its lineup more than a year ago. The tweaks to the band's songcraft since are quite substantial but most impressive is its ability to give every sound its own space, whether it be synthesizer, live percussion or Sunyatta's bewitching voice. The band's darkwave could perhaps be more easily achieved by eschewing the acoustic elements altogether, yet CaveofswordS is intent on making dreampop as a hybrid of man and machine. One-man-band Hands and Feet fills out the lineup in similarly cybernetic fashion.

Maness Brothers Album Release Show w/ CATL, Calliope, Brother O’ Brother, Beth Bombara, The Strange Places, Bug Chaser
5 p.m. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $10. 314-773-3363. By Christian Schaeffer
From Maness Brothers to Release Hard-Charging New Self-Titled LP at Off Broadway This Saturday:
The music of the Maness Brothers — David on guitar and Jake on drums, both on vocals — is, by design, quick and dirty. The pair plays an intensified version of hill country blues, employing circular, hypnotic riffs with more than a little grit and gristle on top and an insistent, exploratory approach to rhythm. But while the brothers' music thrives on immediacy, the process of committing their songs to wax was slightly more arduous.

Reggie And The Full Effect w/ The Fuck Off And Dies
8 p.m. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street. $15-$18. 314-535-0353.
Otherwise known as the coolest member of every other band he plays keyboard with (The Get Up Kids, My Chemical Romance), Kansas City-native James Dewees has had somewhat mainstream success with Reggie And The Full Effect despite a history of self-sabotage. And we don't mean the kind that lands musicians in rehab. For instance, Greatest Hits 1984-1987 was his first release under the Reggie moniker, despite the project having started well into the '90s. The follow-up was dressed up as a promo of a real album, confusing Sam Goody patrons the world over. And let's not forget Under the Tray that — you guessed it — had its CD hidden under an empty disk tray. If anything, this show is worth going to just to potentially see a grown man reenact part of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" while wearing an over-sized cowboy hat.

Triple Album Release Show w/ The Provels, Bockman, The Best Cat Memes
8 p.m. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion & The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Avenue. $10. 314-775-0775.
One would think that piling release shows together takes the focus off each band but the Provels and Sean Canan's Bockman opt to pool the excitement around their new albums together. There's a bit of mystique around the third group, what with an un-Google-able name such as The Best Cat Memes and little to no information on Atomic Cowboy's website. Considering the pedigree of the other acts, we'll have to assume that the band is up to funk-infused snuff.

Women's Safe House Benefit w/ The Wilderness, Sarah McCracken, Grave Neighbors, Ordinary Things
8 p.m. San Loo, 3211 Cherokee Street. $5-$10. 314-696-2888.
Four acts connected by small strands of folk, pop and punk subgenres ban together for what would otherwise be just another solid night of subversive rock at San Loo. The catch here is that the proceeds go to Women's Safe House, which helps battered women and their dependent children in transition. Taking San Loo's tiny size into account, back-patio and all, expect to rub shoulders and swap sweat with some of St. Louis' finest. Those who can't make the show but would like to donate can do so at this link.

SUNDAY, APRIL 16

Name Sayers w/ Aiko, Edgefield C. Johnston Duo
8 p.m. CBGB, 3163 South Grand Boulevard. $5.
Devin James Fry of Austin, Texas-outfit Name Sayers treats his songs as a kind of seance, singing as if he's speaking to spirits who linger in the room. And the narrow halls of CBGB are sure to be flush with ghosts and ghouls. At the very least, showgoers can fully absorb Name Sayer as the confines glow with the band's dark and rustic songcraft. Edgefield C. Johnston takes a more stripped down approach on this night, opening the show as a two-piece.